Hospitals & Clinics in Goa

A clinic in Margao, a nursing home in Mapusa or a ward block in a larger hospital asks something very different of soft furnishings than a home does. A curtain round a bed is there to protect a patient's dignity during an examination. A blind on a consulting-room window decides whether the doctor can see the patient's skin colour properly at noon. Both get handled by dozens of people a day and cleaned far more often than anything in a house.

Goa adds its own pressure. Through the monsoon many smaller clinics run with windows shut and the air-conditioning working hard, and anything that holds moisture — a fabric blind against a sweating pane, a curtain hem brushing a mopped floor — can start to smell or spot. Near the coast, salt air works on tracks and fittings in the same way it does at a beach villa.

We plan these spaces with whoever runs them day to day: the matron, the clinic manager or the doctor who owns the practice. The questions are practical — what must be screened, what must be wiped, how quickly a curtain can be swapped for laundering, and what the fire officer or your own infection-control policy asks you to specify.